


A Life in Four Parts (AKA Three Times when Primrose Woke Up, and One Time She Didn't Mind)

by StarryEyedWitch333



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Childhood Memories, Implied Abduction, Medicine, Night Terrors, Other, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25544542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarryEyedWitch333/pseuds/StarryEyedWitch333
Summary: Primrose is known for many things: her kindness, her compassion, and her skill with medicine, just to name a few. The one thing she is not known for is her ability to sleep through the night. She's never told anyone why, and she doesn't plan on it.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for talks of death and other such things. Please be cautious!

The sound of screaming had woken her up.

She was four years old, this being one of her earliest memories. She had just gotten to sleep in the wee hours of the night when the cries had disturbed her. Heartbreaking shrieks. Sobs and wails, prayers to a God that may or may not have been listening. She was supposed to be in bed. Her dad had said so. 

“Primrose,” he had said, voice soft and caring with a hand on her shoulder as he kneeled down to meet her gaze. “Daddy’s going to be a bit busy tonight, so you’re going to have to tuck yourself in. If you need anything, just come and get me. I’ll be in the other room.”

She was supposed to stay in bed. He would have locked her in there, she knew now, if he wouldn’t have felt so guilty about it. But she was a good kid. He trusted her. Knew she wouldn’t go poking around.

Then again, she was four. And four-year-olds are not very good listeners.

When the wails had started, she had frozen in place on her bed, the candlelight flickering softly as she stared at the door. She didn’t know why they were screaming: Only that the screaming was bad. Scary.

Slowly, she wiggled her way off the bed, falling to the ground with a soft thud before getting up again and dusting off her nightgown. A pretty thing her dad had gotten her on a recent trip to the village nearby, and something she’d wear all the time if only it were acceptable to wear pajamas in the daytime.

Primrose was soon tip-toeing towards the door, opening it with relative silence and peering out into a hallway that connected her room to the rest of the house.

The darkness was usually a scary thing to a four year old, Primrose included, but the sorrowful wails of the people in her living room were not to be ignored or forgotten or God forbid both. And so, with all the bravery a four year old can muster, she slowly made her way down the hallway as quietly as she could.

The words were there and not there in her mind, all at the same time. She knew what was happening now. Hard not to, with the knowledge she had gotten over the years. But the actual words themselves were lost to time and space immemorial. She could only paraphrase what had happened to the best of her ability, and the best of her ability wasn’t much in her own eyes. Nothing compared to her father, anyways.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s tough, but there is simply nothing I can do at this point. It’s too far gone,” she thought he had said. That’s probably how it had gone, right? A man coming in and not leaving alive. It wasn’t something she had understood at the time, but it was something she understood now. “I’ve done everything I can. If he consents, then perhaps I can at least lessen the pain. Make the process easier.”

That was how she would have said it, and she had learned everything from her father, so that was probably what he had said.

The woman cried, sobbing into her hands in a way that four year old Prim could not understand the meaning of. Then, she sniffled, looking towards the sky and wiping furiously at her eyes, as if that would help her at all. When she was finished, she spoke. “Please… You have my permission. Make it easier for him. He deserves only the best, and I’m willing to pay whatever the price may be for his ease.”

“Very well. Give me a second to gather my things, and I’ll join you shortly.”

The woman nodded, and stood, grabbing her stuff and leaving not a moment later. A few moments of silence. And then, her father turned to look at her standing in the hallway. Maybe she was a bit more obvious than she’d previously thought, because he quietly made his way towards her.

Prim looked at her father.

Her father looked at her.

And then, with a sigh, he scooped her up and began carrying her back to her room. A tired sigh from a tired man. It took her years to realize that he was crying.

She was gently placed on her bed a few moments later, her father covering her in the soft blankets as he kissed her forehead, pushed her hair away from her face, and looked at her with the saddest eyes her four year old self had ever seen. He left the room not long afterwards without a word.

The woman was gone by the morning, and so was the man she had come with, although they both left in very different ways.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Primrose is thirteen, and concerned about life.

Next time, it had been crying that had woken her.

She was thirteen now, and the screams in the night were common. Never a calming occurrence, nor one she appreciated, but they were more expected than before. Patients would come in to be treated for whatever ailment they had, and then sometimes… Sometimes there was simply nothing they could do.

The realization of imminent death was a dreadful thing for everyone involved. When the person was conscious, you could see the fear in their eyes. The terror of a known unknown future. They would die, and then what? Nothing? Heaven? Hell? Who knew? Certainly not Primrose nor her father. It was a topic she attempted to avoid when she could, and when she couldn’t she became quieter. More reserved.

The subject of death was not a sore topic. Not a topic to be shut away out of shame or guilt. It was a topic of fear. Something she was not able to fully comprehend and therefore handle at the time, still unable to do so even at her current age. Thirteen year olds weren’t supposed to fear their own fragile mortality, but alas.

However, tonight was different. There were no patients, unless someone had come in the dead of night to request assistance. Unlikely: Her father would have alerted her to their presence. And it was even more unlikely for someone to break into their home in the middle of the forest just to cry.

So, if there was nobody but them in their house, and she wasn’t the one crying…

She stood up out of her bed and mimicking the soft but quick movements of herself nine years prior, she made her way through her house, past the living room this time, towards her father’s office. Maybe he would know what was going on. A spirit? They’d had a few of those before, and they were never very pleasant. It was a byproduct of the business though. Not really something they could avoid.

What could have, or maybe even should have been avoided was the glimpse into her father’s office as she walked past. There he was. The proud Timothy Boyce, hunched over his desk and in tears. Soft tears. Not heaping sobs, but from the looks of it, she seemed to have just missed it.

She knocked. It would be rude not to, and she wasn’t a rude person. At least, she tried not to be. Immediately, she could see him straighten up in his chair and wipe aggressively at his face. An attempt to hide his emotions. One that did not work on Prim. “W-who?”

She entered, and he slumped a little. Embarrassment over being caught crying? Guilt for worrying her? Fear of judgement? Possibly a mixture of all three? She didn’t know. “I… heard you from my room. And I wanted to make sure you were okay?”

Her dad seemed to relax a bit more, pinching the bridge of his nose in one hand and raising the other towards her. A silent… not a command. No. He was not the type to command things of anyone. This was a plea. Begging her to come towards him. And that is exactly what she did.

That was where they stayed for the next hour or so, silent but caring. The job was tough, and there were things they wished they could unsee. Stuff they knew the other would understand, unlike the people from the world outside their own. Some nights, it was torture. But nights like these weren’t so bad.

The soft rumble of a snore came not long after, and she knew her job was done. Rummaging through the chest near his desk, she supplied a blanket and wrapped him in it, before making her way back to bed. He may be able to sleep in a chair, but there was only room for one, and she didn’t want to rouse him.

The dynamic was imperfect, but it was theirs. They were there for each other when they needed it, and that was okay for now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The most important day of Prim's life, in more ways than one.

The next time it happened, it was an explosion.

She hadn’t been sleeping for this one. No, simply resting on an old tree log, long felled by a storm and lost in thought while she looked over the list of plants she had been tasked with finding.

The day had been very different. For one, it was her birthday. 

“Finally a woman,” her father had said, and she’d scoffed but said nothing. Birthdays were not extravagant ordeals for the small family that lived in the woods: A gift and a meal was the typical affair. It wasn’t often that one of them reached a milestone, though, and so her father had made her a special promise. By the end of the week, they would journey to the nearby village and do some shopping. “Nothing too extravagant,” was the stipulation he had given and of course, she nodded in agreement. They were by no means frugal, but they preferred to live within their means.

The present was gifted a few moments later: A flower crown. They had made them together when Prim was only a toddler, and neither of them had ever been very good at it. With time, though, the activity had fallen into obscurity and Prim would be lying if she said she didn’t miss it. The intricacies of the braiding for the stems showed that her father must’ve worked extra hard on this. And it was going to be another few nights until she gave the flowers chosen a second thought.

That was enough for the festivities, though. They did have work to do, and her father gave her the list of flowers he’d need for his next ‘assignment’, as they called it. A term she’d given when she was younger and one that stuck.

He was worried. Had he been that nervous the whole day? It was something she asked herself often after the events. A sign that she felt stupid for ignoring. “Just a headache.”  _ Just a headache _ . He would be  _ fine _ . 

And the naive young adult left with only a wave and a promise.

“I’ll be back!”

He had said that the flowers were all the way on the far end of the forest. A specific area they called The Mourner’s Grotto. Weeping willow trees, mushrooms, a small creek and flora for as far as the eye could see. One of her favorite sites and it would soon be tarnished in her memories.

She had been examining the list on her way there, scanning the flowers that were needed for whatever Father was making. Larkspurs, foxgloves, lilies of the valley… It wasn’t until she arrived at her destination that something she should have noted long ago finally clicked.

All of these flowers were deadly.

They all had different effects on the human body: Some created hallucinations. Others caused violent tremors. Full-blown seizures for a few of these! And all of them could cause serious bodily harm at the very  _ least _ .

That was when the explosion happened. Even from a half hour’s walk away, she could hear it. It rang through the forest, displacing birds and deer and trailing smoke into the sky. Before she even allowed herself the pleasure of thinking, she was on her feet and running home.

Or, to what was left of it. The sight that greeted her was flames. Her old home, the house she was born and raised in… All of it up in smoke. And no matter how much she called for her father, how much she screamed and ran through the inferno in search of him… There was nobody there.

She had felt lonely before. After all, she was essentially homeschooled in the middle of the forest, a long way from any sort of nearby civilization. The only people who came to visit were dying or merchants or both.

She had never been alone before. Truly, utterly alone. And the first time she truly felt it was watching her home turn to ash, her father nowhere in sight, on her knees and sobbing for herself for the first time in a while.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Primrose has a midnight revelation after yet another nightmare.

Lately, it was nobody but herself that had forced her from her slumber.

It was funny, in a morbid sort of way. She had never been one to have nightmares when she was growing up, but now, far from home and with little money to her name, they came up almost nightly. Sometimes, they were okay. As okay as a nightmare could be, anyhow.

Apparently, this was not one of those nights, as the close up face of her travelling companion told her. An older man. Mid sixties probably, with scars all around his body, but capable nonetheless.

“Hey kid, you doin’ alright?” 

His hand was on her shoulder, only moving when she sat up and scooting a bit further away. Her knees went to her chest, and she stiffly nodded, wiping her eyes with the sleeves of her dressing gown. “Y-yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“Me? Nah. Ol’ Tombob doesn’t do much sleeping these days.” They shared a laugh before falling into a stiff silence. Prim shifted slightly, a silent invitation to join her on the bed that Tombob took, sitting at the far corner. “I’m not one for pryin’ ya know, and I’m certainly no doc, but I don’t think screaming in your sleep is a good thing.”

Prim froze up at the statement, gripping the blanket covering her knees with a grimace. Tombob began backtracking. “Not tryin’ to getcha to talk about nothin’ you don’t wanna, but… Well, the invitations out there.”

A few more moments in silence. She hadn’t confided in Tombob about what had happened yet. Why would she? He wouldn’t even give her his real name. Only some silly monicker he’d probably come up with on the spot. But it was weird to her. She was the one who consoled those they came across. She was the healer. A medicine woman with her whole life as experience.  _ She _ was the healer.

Tombob was anything but. He ran into the fray, ready to clobber whatever foe they encountered like he was made for fighting. One wrong look at either of them could get someone knocked upside the head if she didn’t rein him in in time. He was a fighter, she was the healer.

But here they were. Sitting in their shared inn room in the middle of the night, with Tombob being the one that consoled her. He didn’t even know why she was upset, and yet he had taken the time to at least wake her up. To bring her out of the hellish fires of her dreams and into the melancholic limbo of the living.

Tombob spoke up in the darkness. “Is it about that weird dress lady? The one that kept botherin’ ya about your shawl thing?”

Yes and no. The shawl was one of three things she had salvaged from the fire that day, along with the notebook her father had kept with all the information he’d gathered throughout the years and a small bag of gold they kept in case of emergencies. It was not the fact that the woman had been picking on her, although that did play a part in her reaction. The woman had also decided to poke at her father. Nothing serious, in hindsight. “No fashion sense,” Prim thought the woman had said.

But it was a case of ‘too much too soon,’ and Tombob seemed to have caught onto it somewhat. “Earth to Prim? If ya don’t answer soon, I’m gonna go down there and beat the shit outta her right now. Crazy bitch.”

Prim laughed a bit at that, wiping some more at the stray tears that still streamed down her cheeks. “N-no… No, let’s not get ourselves arrested. Just a nightmare, I guess.”

“No duh. You sure you don’t wanna talk ‘bout it? Nightmares are a pain.”

“... Yeah, I’m sure.”

Tombob seemed a bit perturbed by the somewhat hesitant answer, but he knew when to pry and when not to, and three in the morning didn’t feel like an adequate time for either of them. So he nodded. “‘Kay. I gotcha. I think I’m gonna head back to the other room now, but if ya need anything, just holler. Got it? No screamin’ in your sleep, either. Scared the shit outta me.”

She averted her gaze with a somewhat sad smile, but chuckled and nodded herself. “Sure. Okay. Night, Tombob.”

He cracked a smile, one that she could see with aid from the soft light of the lamps outside, and stood to leave. Not before ruffling her hair a bit, though. “Sleep tight, kiddo. See ya tomorrow.”

Prim didn’t sleep for a bit after that, but it wasn’t for fear this time. It was for realization: She wasn’t alone. Her father wasn’t there anymore. He was out there somewhere, she was sure, but despite all of the mayhem that had occurred within the past however many months it had been, she wasn’t  _ alone _ . She had Tombob. She had met magic users, and fighters, and priests and performers and merchants and even her own pet goldfish… The list was somewhat short for now, but it was longer than it had been when she was in the forest, and it had the chance of becoming even longer with time. The epiphany came at just the time it needed to, and despite the residual sorrow from her previous dream, she was able to lull herself back into unconsciousness soon enough.

The next morning, Tombob awoke to a cup of tea. Sweet, aromatic, somewhat floral, and kept warm through magic.


End file.
